As a rule, I try not to get too political in social media, and definitely not on this website. But after I spent a year working on an interactive fiction (IF) game that explores Latin American issues, a well-known IF writer dismiss it as racist without even having read it.So, I have decided, f*ck it. I’ll state a few political opinions here that relate to “geek culture” and its obsessions with Political Correctness. I can’t promise I’ll never do it again, but I’ll try.

After a difficult ballet performance, Iris sees that her career as a dancer is over. Her roommate won’t believe it, her boyfriend doesn’t understand ballet, and the other man in her life may be the worst thing to ever happen to her. Unable to see a future without dance, Iris makes every mistake and bad choice that she can.

From behind-the-scenes at a world-class ballet company (performing The Nutcracker) to behind the bar at a music venue in Lower Manhattan, Iris is a haunting and heartbreaking novella, now available exclusively as an ebook!

Artist, writer, veteran, musician, martial-artist, Larry Hama is best known as the writer behind the G.I. Joe comics. If you consider the influence of that single property, Larry Hama’s work has impacted and inspired an entire generation of Americans.

Think Tank is kind of like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare written by guys who want to explore the politics and moral issues of destroying your enemies with groundbreaking technology. Though it’s far from Image Comics’ best-selling title, I have to believe it’s one of its best. What makes this one-shot Fun With PTSD essential reading is just how sophisticated, relevant, and poignant the story is.

Without giving too much away, Think Tank: Fun With PTSDis a one-shot comic book about a government scientist named David Loren who attempts to cure the PTSD of a friend who is a Navy SEAL. Loren is the funny and rascally kind of genius, but the seriousness of the situation takes the story into some affecting places.

There have been a few stories in print and on-screen that address PTSD, but Think Tank is unique in that it examines the biological aspects of the disorder. Scientists have known (or at least suspected) for a while that there is a biological component to PTSD. I’m a veteran who doesn’t have PTSD (most don’t), and I volunteered to be in the control group for a study on PTSD’s affect on the physical brain way back in 2007.

Hawkins and Ekedal take time in the story to explain a lot of the science. This is one of the reasons to love this series: it treats the reader like he or she is smart. If we’re honest, most current science fiction treats you like you’re a reasonably intelligent eight-year-old. In explaining the science, these creators take a serious look at the issue and its solutions. And a tangible solution makes for great storytelling because it gives our protagonist a concrete goal.

So even if you don’t want a moving story that takes a serious look at PTSD that’s respectful of America’s veterans, you actually get a quality science fiction story, where real, relevant science fuels the story, as opposed to the science fantasy that audiences usually get. And if you don’t want a quality science fiction story, you get an emotional story about the effort a person will give to save a friend in need. And if you don’t want any of that, Ekedal’s ink-wash is gorgeous.

And if you like ANY of that stuff, well, you don’t enjoy life very much, do you?

This year Finland is celebrating the centenary of Tove Jansson’s birth. I’m not sure what you’re doing to celebrate it, but I’m going to re-read all the Moomin books that I’ve got and probably finally get around to reading The Summer Book.

If you don’t know about the oddities called Moomins or the genius of Tove Jansson, Drawn and Quarterly has done a great job reprinting the Moomin books over the last few years. I also recommend this BBC News piece that draws the parallels between Tove Jansson’s life and her most famous creations. (I’m not usually into this kind of literary analysis, but the piece says a lot about her life that I didn’t know about.)

Through his newsletter, Warren Ellis has confirmed that he and Scatterlands collaborator Jason Howard are working on an Image title called Trees.

According to Ellis’ newsletter:

I’m finishing issue 4 today — Jason’s doing layouts on the first half while I fix a sticking point in the last half, and that’ll go out tonight or tomorrow. By the time May rolls around, we should have six complete lettered coloured issues in the can. We’ve been working on it since the early autumn of 2013, after all.

Plot-wise, it sounds like a bunch of trees have invaded Earth. Kind of like Triffids. But more subtle. And not real.

I don’t know if George Romero has ever wished he had become known for something other than zombie stories, but, damn, he does them well. The first issue of his new comic Empire of the Dead: Act Oneis full of promise.

Five years after zombies first made their gory appearance, something like a society has survived in New York City. In certain neighborhoods, zombies are still a threat, and in other parts of twon, zombies provide gruesome entertainment. Rather than the simple survival-horror that so many zombie stories are (Romero’s included) Empire of the Dead seems headed for a more directly political angle, featuring politicians who are secretly vampires. That’s right: vampires.

There are other changes in our monster menagerie, as some of the zombies have noticeable signs of intelligence. They all can be trained, but some of them play checkers. One zombie in particular has her own THOUGHT BUBBLES.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that Romero could deliver something new to the genre that he created, but I’ll be checking out this floppy every month. Empire of the Dead: Act One is an All-New Marvel comic (but it appears to exist in its own universe, without X-Men or Avengers, normal or zombie.)

I love Top Shelf. Owned and operated by Chris Staros and Brett Warnock, they’re just one of the great small press comic book publishers ever. They’ve got all that Alan Moore stuff, including From Hell, they publish Matt Kindt and Jeff Lemire, and their kids stuff is always fun. And through November 17th, a bunch of their stuff is on sale at a huge discount from ComiXology.

I swear nobody at Top Shelf or ComiXology is paying for me to tell you to get this stuff. I sincerely think it’s just awesome, and if you want to buy $3 Alan Moore graphic novels, this is the way to do it. The awesome Infinite Kung-Fu is also a huge book that’s just easier to carry if you buy it digitally.